Security For VoIP & Voice Over Wireless

The rapid growth in popularity of VoIP, and the emerging nature of Voice over Wireless, has meant that attention has been turned to security. Some of this attention has been caused by concerns fanned by the security software industry itself and some is justified, particularly in the light of the imperfect history of security in the Wireless LAN market.

Security is security is security

At one level the criticisms levelled at VoIP and wireless technologies are nothing new. There is an argument that the problem is not that these technologies are inherently insecure (or at least any more insecure than other IP networks) but that they have been poorly implemented. Like many other technologies early in their cycle they have often been set up as trials and as such have not come under the realm of normal, operational deployment. For wireless in particular, the technology has been so easy to install that many users have been installing networks in direct contravention of corporate policies designed to protect corporate network assets. As a result they have created a back door to main systems and increased their vulnerability to attack. Adding voice to a wireless network does not automatically make it insecure, it is the network itself and how it is implemented that defines the overall security envelope.

In the home and small business sector the problem has been compounded because many users without a network specialist to call on are incapable of configuring advanced levels of security functionality. They often have weak password implementations and leave the equipment with its “out of the box” naming conventions. Many Linksys wireless hubs can be found with the name still set to “linksys” or Cisco set to “tsunami”. When combined with a password that complies with merely the minimum required to get the thing working, and access set to open it is not surprising that many of these networks are so easy to get on to.

To continue reading about how to secure voice over wireless, visit the Wired Workplace customer zone to download the white paper.